Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,It hath not been my use to prayWith moving lips or bended knees;But silently, by slow degrees,My spirit I to Love compose,In humble trust mine eyelids close,With reverential resignation,No wish conceived, no thought expressed,Only a sense of supplication;A sense o'er all my soul impressedThat I am weak, yet not unblessed,Since in me, round me, every whereEternal strength and wisdom are.But yester-night I prayed aloudIn anguish and in agony,Up-starting from the fiendish crowdOf shapes and thoughts that tortured me:A lurid light, a trampling throng,Sense of intolerable wrong,And whom I scorned, those only strong!Thirst of revenge, the powerless willStill baffled, and yet burning still!Desire with loathing strangely mixedOn wild or hateful objects fixed.Fantastic passions! maddening brawl!And shame and terror over all!Deeds to be hid which were not hid,Which all confused I could not knowWhether I suffered, or I did:For all seemed guilt, remorse or woe,My own or others still the sameLife-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame.So two nights passed: the night's dismaySaddened and stunned the coming day.Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to meDistemper's worst calamity.The third night, when my own loud screamHad waked me from the fiendish dream,O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild,I wept as I had been a child;And having thus by tears subduedMy anguish to a milder mood,Such punishments, I said, were dueTo natures deepliest stained with sin, -For aye entempesting anewThe unfathomable hell withinThe horror of their deeds to view,To know and loathe, yet wish and do!Such griefs with such men well agree,But wherefore, wherefore fall on me?To be beloved is all I need,And whom I love, I love indeed.